When I open an encrypted message in Alpine, it is decrypted fine but
after saving it, if I open the saved-messages folder with Pico, it
appears that any encrypted email is still encrypted. This leads me to believe that encrypted email is decrypted each time it is opened rather
than only the first time. Is there a way of saving an encrypted email
after reading it in its decrypted form?
In my particular instance, it would be nice to have the email encrypted
in transit but once it arrives, I would like to save it in readable
form. I do not want to have worry about maintaining a particular key
over the long term just so I can go back and read past emails.
On Wed, 30 Dec 2020, NotReal wrote:
When I open an encrypted message in Alpine, it is decrypted fine
but after saving it, if I open the saved-messages folder with
Pico, it appears that any encrypted email is still encrypted.
This leads me to believe that encrypted email is decrypted each
time it is opened rather than only the first time. Is there a way
of saving an encrypted email after reading it in its decrypted
form?
In my particular instance, it would be nice to have the email
encrypted in transit but once it arrives, I would like to save it
in readable form. I do not want to have worry about maintaining a particular key over the long term just so I can go back and read
past emails.
Alpine saves every message as received from the server (or as it was
when it was delivered). Saving it unencrypted would mean to rewrite
the headers of the message which contain information on the structure
of the message. I would try forwarding the message (which could
preserve the attachments, etc.) and not exporting, which will only
save what you see in the screen, and not the attachments.
I have used Pine/Alpine on Slackware for many years. Recently I tried setting up S/MIME for encrypting email content on Alpine 2.22. It is currently working fine when sending and receiving emails but there is
one thing I would like to change.
When I open an encrypted message in Alpine, it is decrypted fine but
after saving it, if I open the saved-messages folder with Pico, it
appears that any encrypted email is still encrypted. This leads me to believe that encrypted email is decrypted each time it is opened rather
than only the first time. Is there a way of saving an encrypted email
after reading it in its decrypted form?
In my particular instance, it would be nice to have the email encrypted
in transit but once it arrives, I would like to save it in readable
form. I do not want to have worry about maintaining a particular key
over the long term just so I can go back and read past emails.
Export to file, then have a script convert it back to email appended to
mbox folder?
On Thu, 31 Dec 2020, Carlos E.R. wrote:
Export to file, then have a script convert it back to email
appended to mbox folder?
The problem with export is that it will miss ALL attachments in the
message, and it is just a copy of what you see in the screen, so this
might not work as intended.
The issue with forwarding is the limited amount of headers you get,
but those are the same headers you would see when you read an email,
so there is no middle ground here.
The problem, from a technical point of view, is that the original
mesage has a specific content-type that is specific, and it says the
message is encrypted. That determines how the message is handled. One
cannot say a message is one way, and then handle it in a different
way. What the original poster would like to do is to save a copy and
make a change in the headers of message at the same time (which
technically would not make it a copy, but a new message)
The headers that appear in a forwarded are the same that appear in
the display when you open a header, so if new headers are wanted to
appear in the forwarded message, then new headers have to be added to
the display of every message, and this also causes an inconvenience,
bigger than the one it is solving.
I do not see a good compromise here...
On 30/12/2020 06.25, NotReal wrote:
I have used Pine/Alpine on Slackware for many years. Recently I
tried setting up S/MIME for encrypting email content on Alpine
2.22. It is currently working fine when sending and receiving
emails but there is one thing I would like to change.
When I open an encrypted message in Alpine, it is decrypted fine but
after saving it, if I open the saved-messages folder with Pico, it
appears that any encrypted email is still encrypted. This leads me
to believe that encrypted email is decrypted each time it is opened
rather than only the first time. Is there a way of saving an
encrypted email after reading it in its decrypted form?
In my particular instance, it would be nice to have the email
encrypted in transit but once it arrives, I would like to save it
in readable form. I do not want to have worry about maintaining a particular key over the long term just so I can go back and read
past emails.
Export to file, then have a script convert it back to email appended
to mbox folder?
I have not thought out how to do that script, it is just a wild idea.
On 2021-01-02, NotReal <NotReal@NoSpam.com> wrote:
Eduardo Chappa wrote:
On Thu, 31 Dec 2020, Carlos E.R. wrote:
am guessing that is one reason why email encryption has not become more
popular for general use.
Unfortunately safety and convenience are not really compatible. You have
to carry around house keys to get into yout home, rather than just being
able to open the door (or removing all the doors so that you can just
walk in).
Eduardo Chappa wrote:
On Thu, 31 Dec 2020, Carlos E.R. wrote:
Export to file, then have a script convert it back to email
appended to mbox folder?
The problem with export is that it will miss ALL attachments in the
message, and it is just a copy of what you see in the screen, so this
might not work as intended.
The issue with forwarding is the limited amount of headers you get,
but those are the same headers you would see when you read an email,
so there is no middle ground here.
The problem, from a technical point of view, is that the original
mesage has a specific content-type that is specific, and it says the
message is encrypted. That determines how the message is handled. One
cannot say a message is one way, and then handle it in a different
way. What the original poster would like to do is to save a copy and
make a change in the headers of message at the same time (which
technically would not make it a copy, but a new message)
The headers that appear in a forwarded are the same that appear in
the display when you open a header, so if new headers are wanted to
appear in the forwarded message, then new headers have to be added to
the display of every message, and this also causes an inconvenience,
bigger than the one it is solving.
I do not see a good compromise here...
Thanks again for taking the time to reply and explaining things. I do
not normally need encrypted email but I knew there would soon be a need
to communicate with a relative that involved financial information so
thought it was worth investigating. At this point however, I think
will live with non encrypted email and if there is something that I
feel really needs to be encrypted, I will use the telephone instead.
It is really too bad that with so many good ways to encrypt files at
rest that email encrypted for transit has to remain encrypted at rest
and tied to volatile certificates stored separately from the email. I
am guessing that is one reason why email encryption has not become more popular for general use.
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